Untuk Debt Get Ready To Rise, Pemerintah Pilih Empat Strategis Ini

JAKARTA - The government through the Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani admits that it is believed that the cost of funds (cost of funds) will be stronger in 2023 along with the trend of increasing interest rates that have not ended.

According to him, this makes the government prepare at least four strategic plans to reduce the impact of debt interest expense next year.

First, the government will optimize the remaining more budget calculations (SiLPA) in 2022 to be used in the 2023 State Budget.

"I am doing it now by collecting SiLPA as a financing cushion," he said at the 2023 Economic Outlook forum, quoted by the editor on Monday, December 26.

Second, increasing the portion of financing that does not really affect market movements or market sentiment.

This is like a loan that is bilateral or multilateral. It is much safer and we will maximize it," he said.

Third, issuance of government debt securities by utilizing the right momentum.

"Then the issuance of an opportunistic market. In July, of course, we remember that there was a high turmoil, but we can still issue extraordinary global bonds at competitive prices," he explained.

And the last is the government's continued efforts that will continue to deepen the domestic financial market sector.

"Our retail (community) is happy to invest in government-owned state securities. One thing that is interesting is that more than 50 percent of these investors are women," he said.

"In fact, more and more children under 30 years of age are investing in government securities, some students and students are included as our investors," continued Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani.

Citing information reported by the Ministry of Finance, it is stated that the amount of government debt until the end of November 2022 is IDR 7,554.2 trillion.

The book increased by IDR 57.5 trillion from the position at the end of October 2022 which amounted to IDR 7,496.7 trillion.

Meanwhile, the rising interest rate trend is influenced by the steps taken by the central bank of a number of countries, including Indonesia, in maintaining inflation so as not to move at a wild level.

VOI noted that BI itself has raised interest rates by 200 basis points (bps) since last August to 5.50 percent in December 2022.